To create a common festival where families and friends from all faiths and
races can learn about and celebrate each other’s cultures, traditions and
festivals together. The concept of Peace Tree Day is to educate, donate and
celebrate diversity.

How

Grow or make your own Peace Tree and add a new symbol from a different culture
each year. Visit http://www.peacetreeday.com/makeapeacetree.htm
to learn how to make a Peace Tree. Everyone, especially children, will make a donation (a
toy, clothes, food, etc.) to another child who is in need. Every year
family and friends can choose a culture other than their own to learn about
and celebrate. In addition to reading and listening to stories and music,
families and friends can come together to enjoy a dinner from this culture.

Schools can teach children how they can make their own Peace Tree and Peace
Tree decorations. Children can celebrate by wearing clothes from their
culture or another culture and share music, dance, stories, art and food
from their heritage. Teachers can organize workshops around the school
where students are workshop leaders teaching other children how to apply
mendhi, how to make sushi, how to do the salsa, how to make an origami paper
crane etc.

The inauguration of Peace Tree Day will be on June 1, 2006 at Toronto City
Hall. Children from 50 schools across the GTA will be invited to participate in
the festivities.

Peace Tree Day will include:

Bringing decorations for the city’s Peace Tree

Bringing a gift to donate to children

Children presenting dances with music from around the world

How to workshops from around the world

The inauguration is to launch idea of a Peace Tree Day around the world.
Ideally a Peace Tree will be planted/displayed in every city’s Peace Garden.

At the Border…

Each year, the Peace Tree Committee will work on bringing together children from two countries that have had an ongoing history of conflict. The children will create peace symbols from their cultures and faiths and unite to create a Peace Tree together at the border and exchange symbols and gifts from their cultures. In our first year, we will work towards creating a Peace Tree at the border of Pakistan and India, an area that has been bridled in conflict since 1948. We hope that through this interaction, the children from both lands will begin to realize their similarities and celebrate their differences together. We hope that they will continue their friendship and realize the importance of respect and compassion for each other.

‘Let us embrace the beauty of every culture and faith to create peace in our world.’